


Demon Summoning for Professionals

by Selenay



Series: The Demon and the Librarian [4]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Clint With a Tail, Crack, Demon Clint Barton, Librarian Phil Coulson, M/M, Things go BOOM, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson isn't the only person summoning demons in the city. This would be fine if all demons were like Clint.</p>
<p>Most demons are nothing like Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Demon Summoning for Professionals

**Author's Note:**

> The New York Central Library is a fictitious baby cousin to the New York Public library, just in case anyone thinks I'm confused about New York's excellent library system. This took much longer to write than I anticipated. Hopefully the next part will have less than a five month gap before posting!

For the fifth time in a week, Phil found himself wandering down to the occult section of the New York Central Library after worst of the morning opening rush ended. It was housed in a huge room that spanned two storeys. The second floor was an open gallery, which was only accessible from an awkwardly placed set of wooden steps in the corner of the ground floor. There was evidence in the original building plans that this hadn't been the original configuration, but even plans from the seventies showed the gallery, and Phil hadn't been able to find any sign of the sealed off door that must have led into it originally. Shelves filled every wall on both floors, even covering up the windows. They turned what should have been a bright, airy room due to the high ceilings into a dim, musty cave.

Phil had always thought there was something very odd about a library having such a huge assortment of books on magic.

Of course, there was also a casting room in the basement that had obviously been there for a while and the previous head librarian had disappeared under strange circumstances. Phil was starting to suspect there was something very odd about the library in general.

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, and contemplated the huge room. Again. Now that he knew there was more to magic than he'd ever been taught, the books in this room seemed to weigh on his mind all the time. Most of them were neatly catalogued in the library computer system, but the titles and authors told him nothing about what they actually were.

How many of these books contained real spells, and how many were tourist trash for the credulous? How many of them were dangerous in the wrong hands?

Did the dangerous books leave the library regularly?

Phil frowned at the gaps in shelves where volumes had clearly been removed. Hopefully most of them had been borrowed, and not stolen. At least anything that had been lent out could be tracked.

"What's up, boss?"

Phil jumped and his heart slammed against his chest. He'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn't heard Darcy walking up him behind him.

She was wearing clompy motorcycle boots, and dozens of bangles clattered on her wrists when she lifted a hand to brush her hair behind her shoulders. Her approach probably hadn't been quiet, and Phil winced when he realised how deep in thought he'd been.

Then he sighed. They'd discussed noisy fashion accessories several times over the months. It was time for another staff memo on the subject.

"Nothing's up," he said. "What do you need?"

Darcy wrinkled her noise. "So, remember how Jane likes to camp out in the science section and write her papers, instead of using the university library like normal geniuses?"

Phil had a sinking feeling about this inquiry. "Yes. Has Thor been helping her instead of working the checkout desk again?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Darcy said quickly. "Nope, Thor is being a model librarian today. Like, super model awesome librarian of amazingness."

The bad feeling worsened.

"So what is the problem?" Phil asked. "Doctor Foster is one of our more considerate patrons."

"Yeah, that's kind of the problem," Darcy said. "She's being way too considerate. There's a homeless guy sleeping on her usual table and he's stinking out the entire section. She's working at the table over by the classics, which is fine, except. You know. Stinky homeless guy. And she didn't feel good about throwing him out."

Phil rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache starting to throb at his temples. "I'll deal with it, Darcy. Thank you."

"Just don't chuck him right out on the street, OK? Jane will feel even guiltier about the whole deal if he ends up out there. It's fricking freezing today and it's raining. I can't really blame the guy for trying to get some sleep in a warm dry library."

"I'll make some calls," Phil said, trying to give her a reassuring smile. He suspected it emerged as something closer to a grimace. His head was aching badly already. "I know some people in a couple of shelters. Tell Doctor Foster that he'll have a bed and some help tonight, and she can have her usual table back soon."

"I'll see what I can do about the smell," Darcy said over her shoulder, already hurrying away. "Maybe there's still some potpourri in the store room."

Phil took one last look at the occult books, and turned away with a sigh. The question of what to do about them would have to wait for a while. He needed to catch up to Darcy before she got any ideas about spraying Febreeze in the biology stacks.

***

That night, Phil woke up with his heart thundering in his chest and his skin clammy with sweat. He had been dreaming, a nightmare about books flying off shelves and attacking the children gathered around Steve's feet for puppet time. Most of the books had titles he recognised from the occult stacks. He'd woken up just as a huge grimoire opened, its pages fluttering frantically, and he didn't know what it would do next except that it would be something terrible.

He sat up and took a deep, shaky breath, trying to clear the dream from his mind. The stomach churning terror receded after a couple of minutes, but the mental images didn't.

The clock on his nightstand showed that it was just after six, but Phil knew he wouldn't sleep again. He quietly pulled on a t-shirt--he was bound by the house rules as much as Clint was--and grabbed some clean clothes before silently slipping out of the bedroom. Halfway across the living area, something caught his eye and he paused.

Clint had left a lamp on when he went to sleep. There was a book lying on the floor and Clint's "Librarians Stamp Their Mark" bookmark had landed a few feet away when it fell, which was all the explanation Phil needed. The soft light fell on the demon, sprawled out on his stomach over the sofa. He'd reverted to his natural form in his sleep, as always, but he'd taken the house rules to heart and he wasn't nude.

Phil told himself firmly that he wasn't disappointed.

Clint's black t-shirt had rucked up in his sleep, though, and it exposed several inches of smooth pale red skin. The tattoo on Clint's back stood out against his flesh, somehow looking darker than the black shirt, with edges that were sharper than any tattoo artist had ever achieved. Phil's fingers itched to touch it; to trace the lines and find out whether they held the same heat as the rest of Clint's skin.

The end of Clint's tail twitched, but he didn't show any sign of waking. His tail was the reason his box briefs rode low on his body, exposing sharp hip bones and a hint of the curve of his ass. Phil swallowed convulsively at the images his mind conjured up of what Clint could probably do with that tail. The thoughts chased away the last of the chill from his nightmare, but they weren't helpful either.

Having filthy fantasies about the demon sleeping on his sofa seemed somehow very wrong. Even if the demon in question had strongly hinted (over and over and over) that he was more than happy to fulfil a few of those fantasies.

Phil forced his legs to move and take him away from the source of temptation. He silently finished the journey to the bathroom to take the coldest shower he could stand.

Clint was awake when Phil emerged from the bathroom. He'd put on his human face again and he was scrubbing sleepily at his hair. It stood up in a wild tangle that Phil found much too appealing.

"What time is it?" Clint asked.

Phil glanced at the clock on the stove. "Just after six thirty."

Clint stretched, which pulled his shirt up to expose a couple of inches of golden skin. Phil tried not to stare, and mostly failed.

"This is a shitty terrible time of day," Clint said. "What the fuck are you doing up so early? I thought we were on lates this week."

"I was awake," Phil said.

Clint slowly lowered his arms and tilted his head, staring at Phil for a long, intense moment. Phil tried not to fidget or flush under the gaze. He didn't know why he could feel heat slowly flooding his face: for once, Clint wasn't doing anything deliberately seductive. He wasn't even doing the looking out from under his eyelashes thing that was never as innocent as it seemed.

"You were awake," Clint said eventually. "Huh. Couldn't sleep?"

"That's usually why people wake up early in the morning."

"You might have set an alarm because you planned to torture me by waking me up at shitty ass o'clock."

"I thought demons don't need sleep."

Clint ignored that comment. All the evidence of the last month would be difficult to deny, after all.

"You know, if you wanted me to, I could help you sleep." Clint waggled his eyebrows ludicrously. "I'm really good at it. You'd be really relaxed after I was done with you."

Phil sighed. "I don't think sex with you would--"

"Hey, no, stop right there," Clint said. "Back right up. Who said anything about sex? I didn't say anything about sex. Although if you think a blow job would help..." Clint trailed off with a hopeful smile, which slowly melted away. "Fine, no, I definitely wasn't offering that. Obviously if you ever want to give it a go, I'd be more than happy to help you out in that area. But I was actually offering a backrub or just a good old fashioned dose of demon magic sleep. I put an entire palace to sleep for a month one time. Pretty sure I can get you another couple of hours of shut-eye if you ask nicely."

The idea was tempting, for about half a second, and then the image of a huge grimoire flying at a four year-old rose in his mind and Phil shook his head. "Thank you, but no. I'll deal with it the old fashioned way. Do you want some coffee or do you want to go back to sleep for a couple more hours?"

Clint shrugged. "Nah, I'm good. I'll get up now."

Phil was putting water in the coffee maker when a thought occurred to him and he paused. Clint was shuffling to the bathroom, moving sleepily despite his protests of being fine to get up.

"Could you summon a demon?" Phil asked.

Clint froze, his shoulders going rigid, before he relaxed with a visible effort and turned toward the kitchen. "Me? Summon a demon?"

"Yes, could you do it?"

"Do you want me to do it, or is this one of those academic, just out of curiosity questions?"

Phil frowned. "I was curious. One demon is more than enough in my life."

"I can't summon a demon," Clint said. "That's a humans-only gig."

"But?"

"Who says there's a but?"

"The way you're trying very hard not to answer me," Phil said. "And the way you're about to tear your t-shirt into pieces if you don't stop pulling at the hem."

Clint looked down and his eyebrows drew together as he noticed his hands twisting in the hem of his t-shirt. The possibility that he might tear it was only a slight exaggeration. He released the crumpled fabric and clenched his fists at his sides instead. "I can't summon anything. Not even a low-grade imp. It's one of the rules; otherwise your world would never be safe from us. Can you imagine what it would be like here if demons were roaming free and easy, no bindings or anything?"

Phil couldn't, because the idea was too huge and horrific for his mind to process. "What's the loophole? There must be one, or you wouldn't be looking so worried."

"We can ask humans to summon other demons for us, if we find anyone stupid and gullible enough."

"They'd still be bound to a containment circle, wouldn't they?" Phil asked.

"I'm not," Clint said. "You've got these neat little manacles on me instead." He held up the wrist with the silver cuff, mate to the one on Phil's arm. "Not everyone has this kind of shit, though. You release a demon from the circle without anything else to bind them? Demon's not under your control anymore."

"I'd try to protest that there isn't anyone foolish enough to do something like that, but I suspect I'd be wrong," Phil said.

"Yeah, it happens sometimes." Clint shrugged. "Most of them get caught by white hats like you pretty fast. Demons aren't exactly subtle."

"I've noticed," Phil said dryly.

"I try. Clint's smile was crooked and not very happy. "Is that it?"

"That's it," Phil said. "For now."

He refused to let himself watch Clint walk the rest of the way to the bathroom, because he'd be watching Clint's ass and that kind of thing was going to lead to trouble one day. Instead, Phil returned to carefully pouring water into the coffee machine and measuring out the grounds. It was a steady, familiar task, and his hands moved through the motions with very little conscious input.

He'd read between the lines of what Clint hadn't said, which was probably what Clint intended. Hopefully.

Demons couldn't summon demons, but if one could get a human under their control...the technicality of the rule wouldn't matter.

Phil added it to the long list of terrifying things he needed to think about, and quietly wished he'd never tried to prove demon summoning was impossible.

***

The occult section was empty and still when Phil went there after his two hour shift on the reference desk. All the books stayed neatly on their shelves; nothing so much as rattled or fluttered. Steve's puppet time in the morning had gone mostly without a hitch.

Admittedly, Tommy Jeffries had puked all over Trish Adams, but Phil was pretty sure that was due to a case of M and Ms for breakfast (the brightly coloured evidence certainly pointed that way) rather than demonic or magical interference.

Phil leaned against the doorframe and stared thoughtfully at the shelves. At some time in the past, someone had put a large conference table in the room. It took up too much floor space and probably made putting the books on the lower shelves a pain in the ass. There would be no way to take the shelving cart around the room easily, particularly on the side where there was barely enough room between the table and stacks for anyone to slide into a chair comfortably.

He should probably do something about that.

Except that wasn't really the problem with the room. Not the problem that had been nagging at the back of his mind for days, anyway.

The books in this section were the problem. The books--and how little he knew about them.

He might not be able to do anything about demon summoning in the city, but he could do something about this part of his library. And that's what he resolved to do.

***

"Wow, what happened in here boss?" Darcy leaned into the room, her eyes wide behind her thick-rimmed glasses. The bobble on her grey hat flopped forward and she shoved it impatiently out of the way, settling the woolly monstrosity more firmly on her head. "Did something explode and die in here?"

Phil sat back, rubbing his eyes. Darcy had a point. "Personal project."

"To totally reorganise all the weirdest books in the library in one evening?"

The large conference table was littered with stacks of books, and Phil currently had three open in front of him. He'd perched his yellow legal pad on his knee to free up some table space, and his laptop was hidden under a pile of print outs. "I thought it was time for a more thorough catalogue of what we have here."

"You know that will take, like, the next twenty years. Right?"

"Hopefully it won't." Phil offered her a small smile. "Are you leaving?"

"Yup, it's the end of my shift." Darcy gestured behind her with a thumb. "Thor's on the checkout desk and Jasper just took over on reference. Clint will probably be bugging you in about five minutes because he's shelved everything and it looks like we're in for a slow night on returns."

"Go home, then," Phil said. "Have a good night."

"See you Monday," Darcy said cheerfully.

Phil squinted for a moment before remembering that, yes, it was Friday and Darcy wasn't scheduled to cover the weekend this week. He was fairly sure he wasn't supposed to be working either. The books piled everywhere begged to differ.

"See you on Monday," he said. "Enjoy your weekend."

"You too, boss," Darcy said. "Take Clint somewhere fun. I think he's getting bored locked up in here every day. Take him to a club or something."

She was out of the door and away before Phil had a chance to object. He couldn't decide whether he objected more to the idea of taking Clint to a club--which would be a terrible idea--or her assumption that they had the kind of relationship where taking Clint somewhere was his job.

He rubbed his eyes again and pushed the thought aside, pulling one of the books closer so that he could try (again) to decipher the first paragraph of the introduction.

Phil hadn't managed to get further than identifying it was in English--although the handwriting was so crabbed and old-fashioned it might as well have been in Sumerian--before there was a casual knock on the door and Clint wandered in. He flopped onto the nearest chair, all loose limbs and graceful draping.

It was very distracting, particularly because Clint had decided he needed to wear glasses again today.

"Can I go and visit the Pratchett guy?" Clint asked.

Phil looked up. "I'm not sure I want to know this, but...why?"

"So I can make him write more books. I've run out."

"In the last month, you've read all the Discworld books? All of them?"

Clint shrugged. "Yeah. And the rat one. And the ones about the little guys on trucks. And that one he wrote with the Gaiman guy. I've read everything and I need more. So, can I?"

It took an effort of will not to bash his head against the table. Turning a demon into a book lover might be one of the worst things Phil had ever done. "No. He's writing as fast as he can, given his circumstances."

Clint narrowed his eyes. "How about if I offered to fix his brain. Would he write more books if I did that?"

"Possibly," Phil said carefully, "and it's tempting to say yes. But it would be wrong."

"Why?"

"It just would." Phil sighed. "Are you really looking for more Discworld books, or would you be happy with another author?"

Clint looked thoughtful for a long moment. "I might be willing to try another author. Maybe. What do you recommend?"

"If you want something that will take a while, you could look for George R. R. Martin. We've got at least three copies of _Game of Thrones_ in stock."

"I've shelved some of those," Clint said. "They don't look funny."

"But they're long and everyone dies," Phil said, allowing himself a small smile. "I thought they'd be perfect for you. Plenty of brutal murders and guts everywhere."

"They don't sound terrible," Clint said cautiously. "Got anything else? Something funny, in case the Martin books get boring?"

"Look up Robert Asprin," Phil said. "We should still have a couple of his books somewhere."

"That name sounds made up."

"It probably is, but his books are definitely funny."

"OK, I'll try him." Clint turned to leave, but poked his head around the door a moment later. "You're really sure about the Pratchett guy?"

Phil wordlessly pointed to the door, and Clint left with a loud, obnoxious sigh.

Yeah, turning a demon into a book lover was definitely right up on there on Phil's list of 'Terrible mistakes I have made'. It was just below 'Summoning a demon' and a few places above 'That night in college I never want to think about again'.

He decided not to think about the fact that he had a mental list or how long it was. That would only be depressing.

***

Clint returned from his book hunt sooner than Phil expected, but he had a small stack of paperbacks and seemed content to sit in one of the wooden chairs on the other side of the conference table. The only sound Phil heard was the soft flick of pages turning and the occasional low snort or chuckle at whatever Clint was reading. Phil didn't remember _Game of Thrones_ having that many jokes, but Clint found the strangest things funny sometimes. 

There were more comfortable places to read--Phil's office, for a start--but Clint didn't shift around restlessly or complain about the hard chair. He'd probably sat on much more painful things down where he came from, if some of the paintings of Hell people had drawn over the years were a guide. Maybe uncomfortable library chairs were the punishment meted out to souls who tore the last pages out of mystery novels before returning them.

Phil had learned to check the last few pages of any Agatha Christie before he put it on the shelving cart. There were some sick people out there.

They didn't talk and Phil started to hate handwritten manuscripts after a while, but it was an oddly pleasant evening anyway. Phil had to remind himself that it was a demon sitting over there, frowning at a thick paperback, and not a person he liked and hoped to like more.

The fifteen minute warning alarm sounded and Phil put down his pen before stretching, trying to work some of the kinks out of his spine. His head was aching, a throbbing pain just over his right eye, and his eyes felt sore from squinting at tiny, crabbed handwriting that barely counted as English.

"So, what have you been doing all evening?" Clint asked, looking up from his book. "I thought our job was to keep the library tidy, not turn whole sections into a big mess."

Phil surveyed the conference table. Clint might have a point. Somehow the books had multiplied--or maybe bred--while he was working and there were now piles of them all over the table. The printouts had bred as well, and his legal pad was covered with scrawled notes that he could already tell were almost unreadable.

All that work, the entire afternoon and evening, had produced exactly one entry on his list of books that definitely didn't contain any real magic, with a dozen entries on the possibles list.

He sighed tiredly. "I'm trying to inventory the occult books properly and work out exactly what we have."

"That sounds like a lot of work," Clint said, eyeing the shelves warily. "Why?"

"So I know which books contain spells that might actually work, and what is safe to allow people to borrow. It's entirely possible that some of the demon summoners in this city have been using books from this library, but without a completely inventory, I have no way of knowing how much dangerous material we've been lending out."

"This library has been here a long time," Clint said. "You've been lending out dangerous shit for years."

Phil glared at him. "Not. Helpful."

Clint shrugged. "You didn't ask for helpful. If I was being helpful, I could mark out the books that have actually been used for real magic so you don't have to give yourself a headache trying to figure it out for yourself."

Somehow, it didn't surprise Phil that Clint had noticed his headache. Clint could be surprisingly perceptive. Sometimes. When it suited him.

The rest of the comment sunk in as Phil was picking up one of the book piles to re-shelve it, and he froze. "You could do that? Mark the books?"

Clint shrugged, lazy and confident. It was a good look for him. "Sure I could, if you asked. And if you let me do magic in your library for a few minutes. What's the fun in having a demon ready to fulfil your every wish if you don't actually let him...fulfil sometimes."

The cheerful leer Clint sent his way let Phil know that it wasn't just a spell to identify books he was talking about. Phil rolled his eyes and Clint grinned at him, the lascivious expression melting away into something cheekier and, strangely, more genuine.

"If I allowed you to cast that spell," Phil said, "how would you mark them? You wouldn't damage them, would you?"

"I can mark them however you want," Clint said. "I could put little red stickers on the spines or something. That can't be any worse than the Dewey numbers you've got stuck on most of them."

Phil thought quickly. He could easily send out a memo asking the staff to make a note any time a book with a red sticker on passed over the checkout desk. It wasn't strictly legal, probably, but it might help.

"I could also put something in your catalogue," Clint said. "Then you could set up some kind of alert to send a flag when the books get lent out. You know, in case that kind of thing interests you."

It was like Clint had read his mind. Phil decided not to even think about that possibility; it was far too disturbing.

"Go ahead," Phil said. "Stickers and catalogue marks, but that's it. When you've done it, you're banned from using magic in my library again."

Clint's smile didn't reach his eyes this time, but he didn't say anything. He just stared around the library, seeming to take in every book during his slow survey, and made an odd flicking motion with both hands. A pale white mist unfurled from his fingers and slowly crawled across the floor, writhing up the stacks in a motion that made Phil feel queasy to watch. It was unnatural and disturbing in a way that he didn't understand, but could instinctively feel. The mist curled around the gallery and spread out over the stacks on that level, undulating and pulsing as if it was alive.

Maybe it was.

When Phil turned to look at Clint, there was a look of intense concentration on his face, and for the first time, Phil saw signs of strain. It was there in the sweat beading his upper lip and the fierce scowl he was directing at the mist. A faint suggestion of horns was showing through Clint's hair, and his skin was several tones redder than it had been a few minutes ago. The illusion that hid his demonic form seemed to be getting thinner.

Clint clapped his hands together and the mist disappeared as if it had been sucked into the books. He slumped against the table and Phil could hear his harsh breathing.

"There, done," Clint said after a minute, waving vaguely around him. "Little red stickers and your computer catalogue is flagged up. Can we go home now?"

Phil stared around. There were a lot of red stickers. A lot. At a very conservative estimate, he thought that three quarters of the books had red stickers. At minimum.

"Fuck," he breathed.

Clint blinked and looked up. "Yeah. You've got a lot of really dangerous shit in this library, Phil. And I'm beat, so can we go home and feed me pizza now?"

***

Saturday mornings in the library were always busy. Phil suspected they might actually qualify as a circle of hell, although Clint denied seeing anything like Saturday-morning-library-rush in any of the places he knew.

Phil always put himself on the rota for the desks when he worked on Saturdays. He didn't feel that he could ask his staff to do any tasks he wasn't also willing to do. So he spent two hours processing huge piles of returned books, trying to smile pleasantly no matter what people brought in.

He even managed to keep his lips in a shape that might have resembled a smile when a family of five walked in with several huge bags filled to the brim. They'd each borrowed the library's maximum (twenty books, ten audio-visual items) and processing it all took fifteen minutes because half the DVDs had been muddled around in their cases. The patrons queuing behind became steadily less patient, even though Steve was working the second desk and putting everyone else through as fast as he could.

As Phil was the most senior librarian on duty--and also right there, easily noticeable, instead of out of the way in his office--he got pulled into every dispute over a fine that came through as well. He always took them on a case by case basis, a policy Fury had agreed with every time someone questioned his decisions. So the single mother with two young children, who had five books overdue by a week because she'd been working bad shifts, got a fine she could afford and her ticket reactivated. She was a regular, rarely overdue, and Phil didn't like taking the joy of books away from small children.

The family who tried to haggle while holding cups of coffee that cost more than their fine did not get a reduction. Phil threatened to ban them for a month if they threatened his staff again.

It was well after lunch by the time Phil felt he could leave the library floor and retreat to his office with his sandwich. He spent an hour trying to figure out how to make the catalogue record that a flagged book had been lent out, taking occasional bites of his sandwich until the bread had dried out too much to be palatable.

He finally gave up and hunted down Skye.

She'd been their summer student over a year ago. After Fury saw how much their IT service calls had reduced, she'd been kept on part time. Phil wasn't sure why someone with her background in computing was studying for an MLIS, but he wasn't going to inquire too deeply in case she took offense and left.

"Are you sure this is strictly legal?" Skye asked as she sat down at his desk.

Phil fought down a wince. "It might not be. You don't have to do this..."

Skye grinned. "Hey, I'm doing it, don't worry. I just wanted to make sure you knew we're breaking about a hundred different privacy rules. Getting under the hood of your catalogue has got to be more fun than explaining frogspawn to a dozen kids. It looks like one of the local elementary schools set a weekend project. Just a heads up if you're planning on taking my place."

Phil did take her place, and he spent an hour explaining frogspawn to a stream of eight year-olds exactly as she'd predicted. The early birds had already borrowed all the books that might have helped. He made a mental note to send out memos to the local schools again, asking them for details of upcoming projects so the library could be prepared.

He was grateful when Skye tagged him out with a muttered "Check your email" as she shooed him away.

His email contained an automated message noting the title and return date of the book on household charms Skye had pretended to borrow and return. She'd included the library card number as well, but she'd left out the patron name. It was a flimsy pretence at maintaining the privacy laws, but Phil appreciated it.

Phil considered spending the rest of the afternoon in the occult section. He wasn't sure what he'd be looking for if he did, though, so he pulled the first folder off his inbox instead and began working through the latest budget figures.

Clint shuffled into his office a couple of hours later and flopped down on the chair in the corner. "So, I've been thinking."

That was never a good conversation opener when Clint was the one saying it. Phil didn't bother trying to suppress the urge to grimace. "What have you been thinking?

"I've been thinking about how to figure out where demons are being summoned," Clint said. "And I figured, have you tried a like-to-like spell?"

"A what?" Phil asked blankly.

"Like-to-like," Clint said, as thought it was supposed to mean something the second time he said it. "You know?"

"Clearly, I don't know."

"Jeez, what did your grandmother teach you?"

Phil's lips tightened without any intention to, and he guessed that he was looking irritated from the way Clint's shoulders drooped. "She taught me what she thought I'd need to know, and I've never needed to learn more before."

"Uh huh," Clint said sceptically. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I've never seen anyone cast better wards than you and I've seen a _lot_ of warding spells. And you've got some awesome shit in the apartment making sure dust fucks off somewhere else instead of landing on your stuff."

"Thank you, I think."

"It's just very...domestic," Clint continued. "Amazingly powerful shit, but really...domestic. And then you got curious and tried to raise a demon. You bypassed, like, a hundred easier things--including like-to-like spells--and went straight to demon raising, which you humans have a whole thing about keeping secret."

"I had my reasons."

Clint smirked. "Proving it couldn't be done kind of reasons?"

Phil coughed, feeling his face heat. "Possibly."

"Someday, you're going to tell me what got you started on the whole proving it couldn't be done thing," Clint said.

"Maybe someday."

Clint grinned and Phil felt an odd sense of relief that whatever hurt he'd caused seemed to have been fixed. He should not be worrying about a demon's feelings. He was fairly sure that way led to madness.

"So, like-to-like spells," Clint said. "You've seriously never heard of them? OK, no, sorry, not saying that again. They're spells that call one part of something to the rest of itself. Or sometimes just things that are really similar--candles made by the same guy from the same batch of wax, for example--and they tell you where to find the rest of the parts."

"OK," Phil said dubiously. He couldn't see where this was going yet, but he trusted that Clint had a point somewhere.

That thought alone should worry him. He didn't trust Clint not to eviscerate someone who really pissed him off, probably festooning the guts around the room just because it looked pretty, but he did trust Clint's intelligence and eagerness to show that off. One day, Phil sensed this might be a problem.

Clint grinned. "So, the red sand you were using in your spells to send me back. You said a few people had been buying up a shit ton of it and you'd bought the last dregs from the barrel. Right?"

Phil smiled back as the pieces suddenly slotted into place. "We could use the red sand I have to trace the rest of it?"

"And we have a winner!" Clint declared. "It's pretty much only used in summoning and banishing spells. So whoever bought it all up, they have to be summoning demons. Find the person with the most if it, find...OK, maybe not all of them but you'll know more than you do right now."

"Assuming he hasn't used it all up," Phil said.

"Yeah, assuming that. We'd be in pretty deep shit if he'd summoned that many demons, wouldn't we?"

***

Breaking into a library at six AM on a Sunday morning was probably going down in Phil's book as the weirdest thing he'd done so far on his quest to understand demon summoning. OK, technically, he had keys and the alarm code so it wasn't breaking in under the strictest definitions of the term. He wasn't going to be arrested by anyone, at least, because he was the head librarian and he had a key.

It still felt like breaking in, because it was six in the morning on a day when the library wasn't open and he wasn't going in for library business.

Somehow, it always felt much less illicit when he just stayed at the library for a couple of extra hours after his shift finished. There was probably some kind of psychological thing going on there that he didn't want to explore too deeply.

Having a demon at his side as he turned off the alarm didn't help. Phil suspected that having a demon at his side was never going to make him feel completely guilt-free about anything. He hadn't been able to indulge in his love for excessively rich chocolate cake since Clint arrived and started accompanying him to the grocery store. There was definitely a psychological thing going on there that he wasn't going to poke at.

Phil hesitated before turning on a few lights. Just enough to get him to his office safely without drawing unwanted attention. He figured that wandering around with flashlights would look much more suspicious than turning on some lights.

"You know, I could have just taken us straight to your office," Clint said, not bothering to keep his voice low. "It would have been a lot easier."

Phil snorted. "For a start, I'd prefer not to experience your transport methods again. And secondly, that would have meant you using magic in my library again."

"You've really got a thing about magic in your library," Clint said. He was walking so close to Phil that their shoulders brushed. "How is me doing magic in the library any different from you doing magic in your casting room?"

Their hands touched for a moment and Phil decided to charitably call it an accident. He wasn't sure why Clint was so spooked by an empty library and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, either.

"It just is," Phil said. Their footsteps bouncing off the walls sounded shockingly loud as they hurried down the stairs to the basement. "Anything I do is contained by the casting room's wards. Anything you do out in the library is...not."

His office was at the end of a short corridor. The other doors they passed were all slightly ajar. They led into store rooms and what had once been a dark, cramped staff room, before the third floor had been reopened and a room up there had been converted. Phil unlocked his door and went straight to the back wall, shoving the cabinet that hid the casting room door out of the way with one hard push. Clint made an odd sound, but Phil ignored him and led the way into the casting room.

It only took a few minutes to set up the spell inside the containment circle. A map, a few candles, and some burning incense were all it would take. Phil had spent half the night reading up on like-to-like spells, trying to convince himself that something so useful would really be that easy.

Nothing about magic was ever easy, or so he'd always thought.

Clint watched silently from a corner. He didn't seem to want to get too close to the circle and Phil couldn't blame him.

Phil settled cross-legged in front of the map, the book he'd chosen as the most reliable source open beside him. The incense made his nose itch and he twitched it, trying not to sneeze. There was a low chuckle from Clint's corner, a rich sound that wrapped around him and made his skin heat and tingle in distracting ways.

Phil narrowed his eyes and sent a glare in Clint's direction, which only made the demon laugh more. The tips of Phil's ears felt too hot, a sure sign that he was blushing. He wondered, for possibly the thousandth time over the last month, why he always found Clint most attractive when Clint wasn't actively trying to be seductive. It seemed unfair.

Clint coughed and managed to choke down his laughter. Phil took a deep, settling breath, shook a small amount of red sand out into his hand, and concentrated. The incantation was short, but the power the gathering in the room raised goose bumps on Phil's skin before he was even half way through. He opened his hand near his mouth as he whispered the end of the spell, letting the final syllable turn into a soft exhalation that blew the sand out in a cloud of sparkling red powder.

The energy in the room mingled with the sand and there was a bright flash of light that blinded Phil for a moment. When his eyes cleared, he looked down at the map in front of him. It was covered in a fine layer of red, but most of the sand had gathered in one place.

"Did it work?" Clint asked.

Phil frowned. "I think so."

There was a soft scuffling and then Clint was kneeling at the edge of the circle, careful not to let any part of his body cross the line. He stared at the map. "That doesn't seem like a really obvious demon summoning neighbourhood. I expected something..."

"Less expensive?"

"Pretty much."

***

Phil's breath puffed out in white clouds and he buried his hands deeper in his coat pockets. Clint looked thoroughly miserable, even though he was bundled up in three scarves with a hat pulled low over his ears. He'd complained for the last hour that demons weren't built for stake-outs in freezing weather.

The house they were watching across the street didn't look like the home of a demon summoner. It was the kind of place where a family should live, with kids in private school and a golden retriever in the yard and a maid to keep the house spotless. Phil slouched against a tree wishing he had another cup of coffee to warm his hands around, but he refused to ask Clint to magic one up.

Clint would probably be way too happy to do it.

A gust of cold air found its way through the seams of Phil's jacket, and Clint shuffled closer again. The demon was practically plastered against his side now. Anyone looking out would probably assume they were doing something much less innocent than just sheltering against a tree. Phil didn't have the heart to push Clint away, though, because he could feel how much the demon was shivering.

"It looks empty," Phil said.

"We could go in and take a look," Clint said, hopefully.

Phil hesitated before nodding. "We aren't learning much out here, anyway."

Clint eyed him suspiciously. "Really? Just like that, you're saying yes?"

"Just like that."

Phil wasn't going to think about the fact that he'd said yes at least in part because he was worried about how cold Clint looked. When he had some time, he really needed to do some more demon research. Someone had to know something about demons and their cold tolerance levels.

The house was surrounded by a walled garden--every house on the street was the same--with spikes topping the brickwork. They hurried across the road and Phil touched the metal gate with a gloved hand, half expecting it to be enchanted in some way to keep out intruders.

The gate slowly swung open. Phil started to get a really bad feeling.

"I don't like this," Clint said quietly.

"Neither do I."

Without any further discussion, they walked through the gate and up the short driveway to the house. At any moment, Phil expected some kind of magical defence to spring up and stop them, but there was nothing.

The house door swung open at his touch as well.

"Shit," Clint breathed. "This is...fuck."

Phil silently agreed. He wished that he'd spent more time in the library studying defensive magic. All he'd brought with him was a small bag of the powder he'd used on the hellhound and a couple of shielding spells, ready to be triggered. That didn't seem like enough right now.

Although he did have a demon. He tried to find that comforting.

"Are you sure about this?" Clint asked, sounding wary and unhappy.

Phil tried to smile at him. It felt tight and crooked on his lips and he suspected it wasn't comforting. "No. But we've come this far."

"Right. OK, let's do this."

The entryway looked surprisingly normal. There were coats hanging in the closet and a couple of flyers on a table, under a bowl that was probably used for car keys. A bright, sunny kitchen was visible through a door straight ahead, and a wide staircase to Phil's left probably led to the bedrooms.

A door on the right was standing ajar. Phil wasn't sure what instinct prompted him to try there first, but he pushed lightly against it and stepped through, Clint on his heels.

It had probably been the living room at one time, but all the furniture had been removed and the carpet had been rolled up and left against the wall. A large containment circle had been painted onto the tiles underneath in thick, dark red paint. Symbols that Phil vaguely recognised, but couldn't place, had been added at each compass point and the melted remains of black candles dotted the floor. A small open barrel containing what was left of the red sand sat in the corner. The room stank of sulphur and smoke, and Phil coughed as the air burned in his lungs.

"Fuck," Clint breathed.

A patch of twisted, burnt tile in the centre of the circle drew Phil's eye. He took a step forward without thinking.

His foot touched a smear of red paint and the air in the room suddenly seemed to thicken and catch in his throat, making him cough harder than he ever had. He couldn't catch his breath and the sulphur stench was getting worse, stinging in his eyes and burning his skin. Energy crackled through the air, lancing against the walls and floor in jagged streaks of lightning. Phil tried to retreat, but his foot caught on something and he fell backward.

He fell into Clint's arms, which wrapped tight and strong around his chest. In the middle of the burning and choking, he felt reassured and safe as Clint pulled him closer and whispered something in his ear that he couldn't make out. It might have been "sorry".

A moment later, cold surrounded him and there were angry voices muttering in languages that he didn't want to understand. Clint's body was the only source of warmth and Phil held onto his arms, pushing closer to the safety he represented.

They stumbled out onto the street and Phil's legs refused to take his weight. He fell to the ground, a heavy weight landing across his back a moment later. Before he could protest, a concussion of heat and sound rolled over him as the house exploded. Debris fell around them, but Clint's body sheltered him from the worst of it. Even though he was still struggling to breathe, Phil was dimly aware of a surge of mingled gratitude and worry. Clint grunted a few times as rubble hit his back, but he didn't roll away until the air cleared and the debris stopped falling.

Strong hands rolled Phil over and he coughed as he finally drew a full breath of cold air. He opened his eyes and looked up into Clint's worried face.

A demon was worrying about him. Phil thought he should find that terrifying, but he didn't.

Clint stared down at him for a long, long moment. Phil's mouth was dry and filled with masonry dust. He tried to lick his lips so he could speak and Clint's eyes flickered down, the worried look melting into something hungrier. Air caught in Phil's throat again, but this time it had nothing to do with sulphur and magic.

Time slowed down and Phil couldn't look away. Heat curled low in his gut and his hand tightened involuntarily on Clint's forearm. It would be so easy to stretch up, to meet Clint's lips in a hard, needy kiss, but he couldn't. The desire building in his body warred with his rational brain and he couldn't move. He couldn't look away from Clint's eyes, still staring at him with that hungry, desperate fire, and he knew that if Clint leaned down he wouldn't say no to whatever happened.

The sound of a siren in the distance broke into the moment, shattering it into pieces. Time sped up again and Clint's head jerked up, his eyes scanning the street rapidly.

Phil stifled an undignified whimper and tried to pretend he wasn't still half hard and aching in his pants. He was fairly sure Clint knew exactly how he felt--it would be difficult to miss--but thankfully Clint's eyes were cool and detached when he looked down again.

"We should get out of here," Clint said. "Can you walk?"

Phil swallowed. His mouth was still too dry and tasted of dust and something even more unpleasant. "I think so."

"Good," Clint said. "I can transport us to your apartment, if you want."

Sitting up made Phil's head swim for a moment. He let Clint help him to his feet and his legs held, but he felt exhausted and shaky. Too wobbly to trust himself to run far or fast, anyway. "Do it."

Clint's lips tightened, but he nodded. The cold enveloped them again and Phil tried not to cling to Clint, even though every fibre of his being wanted to.

They emerged in a deserted side street around the corner from Phil's apartment. He forced himself to move away from Clint as soon as the world stabilised around him and Clint let him. The walk to his building was slow and silent.

Clint didn't speak until they were inside the apartment and he'd stripped off his hat and one of his scarves. "They knew we'd track them."

Phil nodded, feeling every muscle ache. All he wanted was a shower and a long sleep. "They knew someone would track them and they set up a trap."

"I hate demons," Clint said. "Fucking hate them."

A chuckle tried to creep up Phil's throat, but it made him cough again.

Clint rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. I'm awesome, but other demons? I hate them."

"I'm taking a shower," Phil said.

He almost hoped Clint would make some kind of pass, maybe offer to scrub his back, but Clint didn't and Phil tried not to feel disappointed. He mostly failed.

"What's the next plan, then?" Clint asked as Phil shuffled towards the bathroom.

Phil paused at the bathroom door. "I have no idea. We wait, I guess, and see what happens next."

"I really hate that plan."

"So do I."

Phil closed the bathroom door and leaned back against it, somehow simultaneously feeling more exhausted and more wound up than he ever had in his life. Life was so much less confusing before it got filled with demons.


End file.
